'We're right near the border' she said. 'Smugglers used to come over here. And rebels. Witches. Terrorists.'
'So which way?'
'There.'
Amy was indicating a tiny winding turn off with a sign above it, just perceptible through the mist.
The road to Arizkun was the narrowest yet: high mountain hedges with great rock boulders hemmed them in, like bigger people trying to bully them into a corner. More mountain peaks stretched away to the west, a recession of summits in the mist.
'On a clear day you can see right into France,' said Amy.
'Can barely see the damn road.'
They were entering a tiny and very Basque village square. It had the usual Basque pelota court, several terraces of medieval stone houses, and a bigger stone mansion, adorned with a sculpted coat of arms. A wyvern danced across the damp heraldic stone: a dragon with a vicious coiling tail, and feminine claws.
The village was desolately empty. They parked by the mansion, which was spray-painted with ETA graffiti.
Eusak Presoak, Eusak Herrira.
Beneath this slogan was an even larger slash of graffiti. Written in the traditional jagged and ancient Basque script, the word was unmistakable.
Otsoko.
Next to the word was a black stencil of a wolf's head.
The Wolf.
Amy was standing next to David, looking at the graffito.
'Some of the Basque kids worship him' she said.
'Why?'
'Cause he's so perfectly ruthless. A brilliant killerwho comes and goes. Who never gets caught.'
She was visibly shivering. She added:
'And they admire the cruelty. Of course.'
'Miguel isespecially cruel?'
'Rhapsodically. Voluptuously. Poetically. The Spanish torture Basque radicals, but Miguel tortures them right back. He frightens the fuck out of the Spanish police. Even the anti terrorists.'
Amy leaned to look at the graffito. David asked:
'What kind of tortures?'
Her fringe of blonde hair was dewed with water in the mist. 'He buried one Guardia Civil guy in quicklime.'
'To destroy the evidence?'
'No no no. Miguel buried the man alive, in quicklime, up to his neck. Basically he dissolved him. Alive.'
Abruptly, she walked on. David jogged after her, together they walked down a damp stony path, between two of the older Basque houses. David looked left and right. Brown and thorny sunflowers decorated the damp wooden doors, hammered fiercely to the planks. Some of the wayside thistles had been made into man shapes. Manikins made out of thistles.
The silence of the village was unnerving. As they paced through the clinging mist, the echo of their footsteps was the only noise.
'Where the hell is everyone?'
'Killed. Died. America.'
They were at the end of the lane. The houses had dwindled, and they were surrounded by rocks and thickets. Somewhere out there was France, and the ocean and cities and trains and airports.
Somewhere.
Abruptly, a church appeared through the mist. Grey-stoned and very old, and perched above a ravine which was flooded with fog. The windows were gaunt, the location austere.
'Not exactly welcoming. The house of God?'
Amy pushed at a rusty iron gate. 'The churches are often like this. They used to build them on older sites, pagan sites. For the ambience, maybe.'
David paused, perplexed. Odd circular stones, like circles balanced on squares, were set along the path to the church door. The stones were marked with lauburus the mysterious and aethereal swastika. David had never seen circular gravestones before.
'Let's try inside,' he said.
They walked down the slippery cobbled path to the humble wooden church door. It was black, old, wet and locked.
'Damn.'
Amy walked left, around the side of the church shrouding herself with mist. David followed. There was a second, even smaller door. She twisted the rusty handle; it opened. David felt the lick of moisture on his neck; it was cold now, as well as gloomy. He wanted to get inside.
But the interior of the church was as unalluring as the exterior. Dank and shadowy, with unpainted wooden galleries of seating. The reek of rotten flower-water was intense; five stained glass windows filtered the chill and foggy daylight.
'Curious,' said Amy, pointing up. One of the stained glass windows showed a large bull, a burning tree, and a white Basque house. Then she elaborated, still pointing at the window.
'The Basques are very devout, very Catholic. But they were pagan until the tenth century, and they keep a lot of their pre-Christian imagery. Like that. That house there ' she gestured to the main window '- that's the exte, the family house, the sacred cornerstone of heathen Basque culture. The souls of the Basque dead are said to return to a Basque house, through subterranean passages'
David stared. The stained glass tree was burning in the cold glass light.
'And the woman? In the other window.'
'That's Mari, the lady of the witches.'
'The'
'Goddess of the witches. The Basque witches. We do not exist, yes we do exist, we are fourteen thousand strong.' She looked at him, her eyes blue and icy in the hanging light. 'That was their famous or infamous saying. We do not exist, yes we do exist, we are fourteen thousand strong.'
Her words were visible wraiths in the chill; her expression was obscure. David had a strong desire to get out; he didn't know what he wanted to do. So he made for the little door, and exited with relief into the hazy daylight. Amy followed him, smiling, and then immediately headed left. Away from the path, disappearing behind the stage curtains of fog.
'Amy?'
Silence. He said again:
'Amy?'
Silence. Then:
'Here. What's this? David.'
He squinted, and saw her: a vague shape in the misty graveyard: female and slender, and elusive. David quickly stepped across.
'Look,' she said. 'Another graveyardWith derelict graves.'
She was right. There was a secondary cemetery, divided from the main churchyard by a low stone wall. This cemetery was much more neglected. A crude statue of an angel had fallen onto the soggy grass; and a brown cigarette had been contemptuously stubbed out in the angel's eye. Circular gravestones surrounded the toppled angel.
A noise distracted them. David turned. Emerging from the mist was an old woman. Her face was dark. She was dressed in a long black skirt and a ragged blue jumper, over which she was wearing a T-shirt imprinted with Disney characters; Wall-E, The Lion King, Pocahontas.
The woman was also deformed. She had a goitre the size of a grapefruit: a huge tumorous growth bulging out of her neck, like a shot putter holding the shot under his chin, getting ready to throw.
The crone spoke. 'Ggghhhchchc,' she said. She was pointing at them, her goitre was lividly bulging as she gabbled, her face vividly angry. She looked like a toad, croaking.
'Graktschakk.' She pointed at them with a long finger, and then at the neglected graveyard.
'What? What is it?' David's heart was pounding foolishly. This was just an old woman, a sad, deformed old woman. And yet he was feeling a serious fear, a palpable and inexplicable alarm. He turned. 'Amy what is she saying?'
'I think it's Basque. She's sayingshit people,' Amy whispered, backing awkwardly away.
'Sorry?'
'She says we are shit people. Shit people. I've no idea why.'
The woman stared. And croaked some more. It was almost like she was laughing.
'Amy. Shall we get the hell out?'
'Please.'
They scurried up the path, David tried not to look at the woman's enormous goitre as he passed; but then he turned and looked at her goitre. She was still pointing at them, like someone accusing, or denouncing, or laughing.
They were almost running now; David stuffed the map in his pocket as they escaped.
The sense of relief when they made the car was profound and preposterous. David pressed the locks and turned the engine and spun the wheel reversing at speed. They rumbled over the cobbles, past the stencil of Otsoko the silently grinning black wolf's head.
Amy's mobile phone bleeped as they crested a hill: the telecom signal returning.
'It's Jose Garovillo. It's Jose.'
'So.' His excitement was real; his fear was repressed. 'What's his response?'
She looked down, reading her message. 'He sayshe is willing to meet you. Tomorrow.' She shook her head. 'Butthis is a little oddthere's something else.'
'What?'
'He says he knows why you are here.'
7
The tiny four-seater plane soared across the windswept fields of Shetland, heading for the rough blue sea already visible in the distance.
7
The tiny four-seater plane soared across the windswept fields of Shetland, heading for the rough blue sea already visible in the distance.
'It's just a twenty-minute flight,' said the pilot, above the loud engines. 'Might get a bit bumpy when we reach the coast.'
Simon Quinn was squeezed in the back of the minuscule plane alongside DCI Sanderson; sitting next to the pilot was DS Tomasky.
The speed of events was bewildering. Simon had learned only the previous afternoon, while watching Shrek with his son, Conor, that there was another murder case, linked to the Primrose Hill knotting. And already he was here: flying across the lonely, sunlit cliffs, with the words of his excited editor at the Daily Telegraph still reverberating in his mind: you know the cliche, Simon: murder is money. Our readers will lap this up. Go and have a look!
It was certainly a juicy story. He could envisage the headlines and the byline photo. But there was a mystery here, too. All he had been told was that the new victim, Julie Charpentier, was also old, and she was from the South of France. But the circumstance which had apparently clinched the link, to the satisfaction of the police, was the fact that the woman was tortured. The details of the 'tortures' were, so far, unrevealed.
When he'd heard about the murder, he'd had to beg Sanderson to take him along; promising him some very nice coverage in the resulting article. The DCI had yielded to the journalist's pleas with a laconic chuckle: 'Make sure you bring a strong stomach. They kept the corpse there for a few days so we could see it.'
The plane raced over the cliffs, out to sea. Leaning forward, the journalist asked the pilot:
'What's it like?'
'Sorry?' The pilot Jimmy Nicolson lifted one of his earphones, to hear better. 'Didnae catch it. Say again?'